I popped down to the local cable company for a chat. After standing for a customer service person for five minutes, aggravating my seized up right knee, I was called.

“I’d like to talk about my PVR,” I said, hoping that didn’t sound too personal.

The lady sat bolt upright in her computer chair. She was very neat – clothes, hair, desk. She wore blue framed glasses behind which were matching bright blue cold eyes that said – don’t mess with me lady. Her thin cupid bow mouth was painted a dull red.

I said very politely. “I’ve paid $15 monthly for almost two years now and I don’t want to keep paying for it. Will I ever own it?.

“No.” She said in a clipped voice. “And you don’t want to either, it’s a re-conditioned one that costs $380 and we don’t sell that model.” I thought for a minute she might be Saga Noren, detective extraordinaire from The Bridge tv series with her expressionless face and staccato speech.

Oh, I thought, I can pay $15 monthly from here to eternity but they won’t sell me the darned thing.

I said carefully, “Should I just buy my own then?”

At this, she clacked away on the keyboard for five minutes looking for a ‘code’.

She was a severe looking lady, perhaps worried if she smiled her face might crack.

Finally she stopped clacking, looked up, and said, “I’ve credited your account as of January 1st with $15 plus tax and we will pick up the cost from now on.”

“Really”, I said, “what, forever?” Sometimes it helps to be simultaneously totally amazed and dumb.

“As long as you remain our customer.”

“Happy New Year,” I said, with a big smile.

This flummoxed her. The corners of her mouth lifted one sixteenth of an inch, and she stumbled, “Thank you for…er…um… being our cable customer.”

Maybe her day was filled with screaming angry customers.

I don’t think she saw me cartwheeling down the road.

(c) 2018 Christine Beryl

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